PESHAWAR, Aug 8: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has set aside the conviction of a member of a proscribed organization, Hizbul Tahrir, and acquitted him.

The single-judge bench of Justice Dost Mohammad Khan accepted the criminal appeal of Syed Mahbub Shah, stated to be a British national, and acquitted him on Friday.

The court ordered the police to return his car which was taken into custody after his arrest. The bench observed that the prosecution could not prove its case against the appellant and the evidence on record was not enough for his conviction.

The appellant was convicted on June 26 by an anti-terrorism court here in a case of distribution of pamphlets of the banned organization. He was sentenced to two-year rigorous imprisonment with fine of Rs25,000.

The appellant was arrested by the officials of the University Campus police station on Jan 13, 2004, and was charged with distribution of pamphlets at a stall in the campus. He was charged under section 6, 7, 9 and 11, of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

Advocate Safeerullah Khan appeared for the appellant and argued that the prosecution claimed that the appellant was distributing pamphlets among the students, but no independent witness was associated in the case.

He contended that although the car of the appellant was taken into custody with his arrest, but the police claimed of recovering the objectionable pamphlets from the car after four days of the custody.

Mr Khan argued that the appellant's computer was also taken into custody, but there was no software of Urdu language installed in it, which proved that the pamphlets were not prepared by him as it were in Urdu. Moreover, he added that it was also not investigated as to who had printed the pamphlets.